Happy October! With the coming of the best time of the year, you should all be expecting what this new series is. That’s right, it’s conspiracy season again. Over the next couple of days leading up to Halloween, I’ll be covering the five best theories, what makes them so popular, my thoughts on each of them, and why you shouldn’t – or should – believe them.

I’m starting out with one that long time readers shouldn’t be surprised by, given how much I talk about it. It’s one that is rooted in hard, undeniable truth, but to just what extent might this sneaky manipulation tactic be used? Let’s delve into the history and science of subliminal messaging in the media and work it out for ourselves.

Human brains, though unfathomably complex, are also sometimes our own greatest weakness, and advertisers know this. In order to make daily processing of the millions on millions of images and noises we receive every day, our brain has what we’ll call a filing system. Imagine if every time you saw a piece of cake, you had to decipher whether or not you were happy that you were about to eat it. “That cake is brown, so it’s probably chocolate-flavored. Last time I ate chocolate cake, I enjoyed the taste of it while eating. I am about to eat this chocolate cake, and it is likely that I will enjoy the taste once again. Therefore, the emotion I feel about the upcoming consumption of this cake is: HAPPY.” Now imagine having to go through that process every time you see anything. Your favorite teacher, your least favorite teacher, your phone charger, someone else’s phone charger, a billboard for a doctor’s office you don’t go to, a driver in the lane next to you. Thank goodness for the human filing system. What that means is that instead of going through that entire stuffy process, your brain logs your initial reaction to everything in addition to your most extreme reaction to everything – when you go to your teacher after a rough week and she gives you an extra credit assignment and doesn’t wake you up when you accidentally fall asleep in her class the next day, your brain logs a vivid memory of relief, encouragement, and peace in association with that the thought of that teacher. Any further encounters with the teacher will automatically be filed under the emotions “RELIEF, ENCOURAGEMENT, PEACE.” When you see a random phone charger in the cafeteria and ignore it, your brain logs a reminder to continue whatever you’re doing and not waste any unnecessary thought if that same image is processed in the future.

Though this eliminates factors that could possibly make this an incredibly overwhelming and unproductive life, this also becomes our weakness when in the slimy hands of psychological predators – for example, some advertisers.

In the 1960’s, major movie production studios and their advertisers started facing some trouble. Though it was kept under the radar, some of these studios even went to court. The crime at hand: the first known case of media-based subliminal messaging. Advertisers, primarily for Coca-Cola, were partnering with production companies and chain theatres to sell more Coke and popcorn, and their method was brilliantly, modernly devised; just a flicker of a picture of a Coke, an underlying sound of popcorn popping, or even a flashing message that read “Buy popcorn” or “Drink Coca-Cola” between frames. Inaudible to the conscious ear and invisible to the unassuming eye, but just enough to give you a sudden thirst for some icy, fizzling Coke or a craving for a bucket of salty, buttery popcorn. Don’t worry – tactics like these were banned long ago and left with the turn of the century. Advertisers have found cleverer ways to trick us now.

A common, legal example of this is the advertising placement for Marlboro. Cigarette companies have a hard time finding businesses who will allow them to advertise freely, so they’ve resorted to subtler tactics. Take a look at this Ferrari – if you hadn’t been thinking about it already, would you have even noticed the cigarette bar code painted onto the side?

However, now that your subconscious eye has registered that image and stored it in your brain, the next time you see a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, your mind will play its association game and link that image of the cigarettes to whatever feeling is already filed with the car.

So this is all known fact, but where’s the speculation? This comes in when we look deeper into media: social media, music production, government airings. If we have acquired the science for subliminal messaging, and it was confiscated and banned by the government, conspirators are asking what’s stopping the government from using this for their own benefit. The campaigning propaganda around election seasons that airs on every TV in America or the songs that rotate around the radio stations 20 times a day reach millions of people – a perfect outlet to get a message out, especially a subliminal one. How do nations reach the point of communism or dictatorship or warfare? Many believe the answer is through subliminal messaging. Some video channels on YouTube claim to help you achieve longer hair, brighter eyes, whiter teeth, or even better chances at winning the lottery – all through a series of seriously eerie images and noises that use subliminal messages to apparently help you reach these goals. As absurd as this seems, these videos each have hundreds of thousands of views and likes.

Theorists also pick apart popular music to find hidden meaning. The most common form of this is reversing the song to find a phonetic reversal: this is known as backmasking. The backmasking of the Beatles’ “Revolution 9” inspired a wave of conspiracy that Paul McCartney had died in 1966 and had been replaced by a look-a-like to keep the band running. (Of course, we could go on about that branch of conspiracies for while – stay tuned for the next few weeks if you want to hear more about that . . . ) Bands have been accused of backmasking for Satanic purposes, sexual innuendos, and even violent or suicidal messages.

Through all of this fact, it’s hard not to wonder who all could have access to this powerful technology, and as you have probably guessed, this conspiracy Aced my test. If you still don’t believe me, next time a government message appears on your TV – or maybe on your phone in the form of a text – or you hear your favorite song, try playing it back in reverse and seeing what else your state representative and favorite singer are trying to tell you.

Till next time. Stay curious.